So B. It Page 5

  “It’s the devil’s brew, Heidi. One sip and you’re a goner.”

  “You’re not gone,” I’d say.

  “True enough, but I’m a slave to the bean, Heidi. Trust me, a slave.”

  While we waited for the water to boil, I sat down across from her at the table.

  “We won’t give up on Hilltop, Heidi. I promise. We’ll keep after them,” she said. “We’ll call and write until somebody up there gives us some answers. We will.”

  But I knew in my heart that wasn’t going to work. Thurman Hill clearly planned to let us swing in the breeze. When I looked over at Bernie, still pale and shaken from her single step outside, I knew there was only one thing to do.

  “Bernadette, I’m going to Liberty,” I said.

  “You? You mean alone?” she said incredulously. “That is totally out of the question. You’re just a baby.”

  “I’m not a baby, I’m twelve. I go out by myself all the time,” I said.

  “Not to New York, you don’t.”

  “I can fly there,” I said.

  “Have you lost your senses, girl?”

  “People fly all the time, Bernie. All those planes we hear going by every day are filled with people.”

  “Other people, strangers, but not you. You’re not like them,” she said.

  “No, Bernie, I’m not like you,” I said hotly. “You and Mama are the ones who match.”

  Color rose in her cheeks, and her back visibly stiffened.

  “I would no more let you get on an airplane than I would cut off my own foot,” she said.

  “Fine. I’ll take a bus. It’ll be cheaper anyway.”

  “Bus or plane, it makes no difference. You’re not going,” she said. “And that’s the end of the discussion.”

  Bernie had a stubborn streak that ran the length of her spine like the white stripe on a skunk. She’d taught me pretty much everything I knew. But there was one thing I knew that Bernie didn’t. I was going to Liberty.

  CHAPTER EIGHT

  More

  I didn’t tell Bernie about my plan. We both had our minds made up in opposite directions about me going to Liberty, and I didn’t see any point in discussing it with her anymore. Anyway, she had her hands full with Mama, whose headaches were coming on a daily basis now. I might have told Zander, but he made himself scarce for a while after the incident with Bernie.

  I called Greyhound from a phone booth outside and found out two important things. One, it would cost me $313 for a round-trip ticket to Liberty, and two, you had to be fifteen years old to travel across the country by yourself. As I’ve mentioned before, I was tall for my age, but the difference between twelve and fifteen is pretty noticeable, especially if you’re looking for it.

  Getting the money was the easy part. I won it playing a slot machine in the downtown Reno bus station. Since the machines at the Sudsy Duds only took nickels, I figured I should find one that took quarters so I wouldn’t have to deal with quite so much change.

  I wondered whether my sweet way with slots would extend beyond the realm of the Sudsy Duds, and luckily I found it did. I knew $313 in quarters would be a pretty heavy load, which is why I decided to look for a machine right in the bus station. That way I wouldn’t have to haul the money too far. I took the Number Five bus there, crullered my own hair as best I could, and put on some of Bernadette’s red lipstick in front of the cracked mirror in the station bathroom. Up close I wasn’t very convincing, but I’d had plenty of practice flying under the radar.

  It took me a little over half an hour to win the money off a big machine I found near a fast-food joint called Tommy Bun’s Hotdog Heaven. I nearly had a heart attack when the coins started chunking down into the bin. They seemed so big and loud compared to the nickels I was used to at the Sudsy Duds. It was early in the morning and nobody was around to pay attention, so I squatted down next to the machine and counted out my winnings. Twelve hundred fifty-six quarters. One dollar more than I needed.

  I had stopped at Bernie’s bank on the way and gotten some paper sleeves to put the quarters in. Ten dollars’ worth in each roll. It took me a long time to count and roll them all. When I was finished, I put the money into a big old canvas duffel bag I’d found in the back of one of the closets Bernie had made me clean out the week before.

  I dragged the bag across the floor a little ways, to a bench near the ticket windows. It was too heavy to drag all the way back over to the bathroom, so I wiped off the lipstick with the back of my hand and unpinned my hair, using my fingers to comb out the biggest tangles. Then I sat and waited for the right person to come along and help me buy my ticket.

  It didn’t take long. She was kind of beat-up looking, with frizzy dark hair and black eyeliner all the way around her eyes. Her lips were thin and turned down at the corners in what could have seemed like a mean way, except I had a feeling she was okay underneath. Bernie probably would have found something wrong with what her eyes were saying, but I had to use my own judgment and she seemed all right to me. She sat down two benches away from me, her legs sticking straight out in front of her, snapping her gum and reading a magazine. I walked over, dragging the bag behind me, and got right to the point.

  “I need somebody to buy me a ticket,” I told her.

  “Running away, are ya?” she said. “Boy, I know what that’s all about, kiddo. Do I ever. But I ain’t got no money for a ticket out of here. Not for you or me neither.”

  I didn’t bother to explain to her that I wasn’t running away—she probably wouldn’t have believed me anyway.

  “I’ve got the money.” I opened the bag and showed her the rolls of quarters.

  “Jeez Louise, whadja do, rob a piggy bank?” She laughed. Her teeth were crooked and the front left one was chipped and gray. “So alls you need is for me to buy it for you? How come you can’t buy it yourself? You got enough money, right?”

  I nodded.

  “I’m not old enough to ride alone,” I explained.

  “How old you gotta be?” she asked.

  “Fifteen,” I said.

  “You could be thirteen,” she said, squinting at my face, “but not fifteen.”

  “I know. When I get on the bus, I’m going to ask somebody to let me pretend I’m with them. That way the driver won’t ask me how old I am.”

  She smiled.

  “You got a plan, don’t ya? I like that. Girl with a plan. Hey, you maybe got enough to take me along?” she asked, arching a plucked eyebrow and eyeballing the rolls of quarters.

  “No, sorry. All the extra I’ve got is these. You can have them, though.” I fished around in my pocket and held out the four extra quarters I’d won.

  She gave a crooked smile and shook her head.

  “Keep it, kiddo. Where you looking to get to anyway?” she asked.

  “Liberty.”

  “I hear you. Where are you going really, though?” she said.

  “Liberty,” I said again. “It’s in New York.”

  “Oh. Never heard of it. So what’s in Liberty?” she asked.

  “I won’t know for sure until I get there,” I said.

  She smiled again.

  “You’re pretty deep for somebody so low to the ground,” she said. “Come on, let’s go get you a ticket.”

  She helped me drag the duffel bag to the ticket window. I had been right about her being the right person, because I don’t think many people would have been willing to stand there being chewed out by the ticket man for buying a ticket with all those quarters. Judi—she told me she was Judi with an i—didn’t even flinch; she just stood there snapping her gum, saying, “Hey, money is money, man,” and waiting until he finally shoved the ticket through the window at her.

  “Get lost,” he said as she turned away from him and handed me the ticket.

  “Get a life,” she replied over her shoulder.

  I thought about Judi saying that and about how the way she said it made it sound insulting. But later, after I’d thanked her and
was standing at the Number Five bus stop with my ticket to Liberty and the four extra quarters in my pocket, I found myself saying it softly under my breath: “Get a life, Heidi. Get a life,” and there was something about the sound of it that I liked a lot.

  CHAPTER NINE

  Back Soon

  Even if Bernadette hadn’t had A.P., she wouldn’t have been able to come with me on my trip. There’s no way we could have brought Mama along, being the way she was about buses, and who else could have possibly taken care of her while we were away? I would have had to go alone no matter what.

  I didn’t tell Bernie the morning I went down to the bus station to play the slots and get my ticket. She thought I’d gone to the library. It was the first time I’d ever lied to her. I didn’t like the way lying made me feel, so I was anxious to set it straight as soon as I got home. When I told her what I’d done and showed her the ticket, she was livid.

  “I’ve poured my whole self into you, Heidi,” she said, “like warm milk into a bucket. Why are you doing this now? Why can’t you just let things be?”

  “Because things aren’t the way they’re supposed to be,” I said.

  “How are they supposed to be?” she asked.

  “A person is supposed to know where they came from, Bernie.”

  “We’ve been over this already,” she said. “It doesn’t matter where you came from; it only matters that you’re here.”

  “Maybe that’s what matters to you, but I’m not like you, Bernie. I don’t want to be like you, and I don’t want to be like Mama either.”

  “Are you trying to hurt me, is that what this is all about?” she asked.

  “It has nothing to do with you, Bernie. It’s about me, don’t you get it?” I shouted. “You think I’ll forget about soof and Hilltop and all the rest of it, you want me to forget, but I won’t. If I do, I’ll end up like Mama—full of missing pieces.”

  “The pieces you’re missing are not important ones, Heidi,” Bernie said.

  “Don’t tell me what’s important!” I yelled. “You don’t know. You don’t know anything. You want me to be like you, but if you really cared about me you’d want me to be normal,” I said.

  Bernie turned her face away sharply as if she’d been slapped.

  “I feel as though I don’t even know you anymore,” she said, and burst into tears.

  I cried then too. Partly because I felt bad about hurting her feelings, but mostly because I realized that what she’d just said was true. She didn’t really know me anymore. I wasn’t sure I knew myself. I wanted to go to Liberty, I needed to go, but I was also afraid, and I couldn’t admit my fear to Bernie—she would have pounced on it like a cat on a yarn ball, unwinding my resolve.

  “It’s not safe, Heidi,” she said. “You’re too young to go by yourself.”

  I didn’t tell her that it also wasn’t legal. Why should I fuel her fire when I knew she’d find out soon enough anyway?

  “I have to go alone. You can’t come with me and neither can Mama. There isn’t any choice,” I said.

  “Yes, there is. Don’t go.” Bernadette was begging now. “Wait until you’re older. Listen to me. I’m not saying forget about it, I’m saying give it time. We can keep calling Hilltop. We can keep showing your mama the photographs. Maybe she’ll remember something.”

  “You’re just saying that to try to keep me here. You know Mama can’t remember things, Bernie,” I said. “I don’t care what you say, I’m going.”

  “You may not go to Liberty and that is final, Heidi,” Bernie said one last time.

  “You’re not my mother,” I shouted. “You can’t tell me what to do. You’re not even family. You’re nobody. Nobody!”

  Bernie snatched the ticket out of my hand. She was so angry, she didn’t even look like herself anymore.

  “Is this what you want, Heidi?” she hissed through clenched teeth, her hand shaking as she held the ticket up in front of me. “Is this all that matters to you anymore?”

  “Yes,” I said.

  She looked at me hard and long.

  “Fine. Then go. Just go,” she said.

  She threw the ticket on the floor and stomped across the kitchen and through the doorway into her apartment, slamming the door behind her. It’s the only time I remember ever seeing that door closed.

  Bernie and I didn’t speak to each other for the rest of that day. I kept going out into the kitchen to check, but the door stayed closed, and for some reason I couldn’t bring myself to open it. Mama asked for Dette several times, but I was able to distract her and keep her occupied with a Flintstones coloring book and endless cups of tea.

  At dinnertime Bernie finally came over and heated up a can of stew. She spooned it onto plates for Mama and me, but she took her own plate back to her place. This time she left the door ajar.

  I put Mama to bed alone for the first time in my life. Luckily she didn’t give me a hard time. I even got her to shower and wash her hair, which was usually Bernie’s department. Later I took my bath, and when I was lying in bed, Bernie came in and sat on the very edge of the bed.

  “You mustn’t lie to me ever again, Heidi,” she said.

  “I had to, Bernie. Otherwise you would have tried to stop me from getting the ticket,” I said, raising up on one elbow and squinting at her in the dark.

  I saw her smile a sad smile and shake her head a little.

  “We both know I can’t stop you, don’t we, Heidi-Ho?”

  Three days later, on the afternoon of September 22, I left for Liberty. I had tracked down Zander earlier in the day to say good-bye and to tell him that I’d managed to convince Mrs. Chudacoff that he would make a good replacement baby-sitter for me. He was happy about getting the job, but mostly he wanted me to tell him again and again exactly what I’d said about him to Mrs. C.

  “I told her you were a good person,” I said, “and a good friend.”

  “For real you said I was a good person? Swear on your mother’s spit?” he said each time.

  “Swear on my mother’s spit,” I promised.

  “Cool.” He beamed.

  “Will you check in on Bernie and Mama?” I asked him. “Take out the trash and bring up the mail?”

  “Yeah. You’re coming back though, right?” he said.

  I nodded and was a little surprised by how sad I felt about having to say good-bye to him.

  Mama was in bed that day with one of her headaches. Bernie had already given her four Tylenols, but she was still moaning and holding her head.

  “Good-bye, Mama,” I said as I leaned over her to kiss her cheek.

  “Back soon, Heidi?” Mama said, looking up at me.

  “Yes, Mama. Back soon.”

  The trip itself would take three and a half days in each direction, but that wouldn’t make any difference to Mama. She had no sense of time passing at all. I could have just as easily been going downstairs to check the mail that day. I stood at her bedside with Bernie’s old beat-up P.F. blue suitcase in one hand, my backpack, containing my list book and two ham and cheese sandwiches, slung over my shoulder, and the ticket to Liberty carefully tucked into my jacket pocket.

  “Back soon, Heidi?” Mama asked again, lifting her head off the pillow and smiling weakly at me.

  “Yes, Mama,” I replied.

  But the truth was, I would not be back at all. Not as the same person I was that day, anyway.

  Bernie and I had made up after our big fight. She told me that she forgave me for the angry things I’d said, and even though I promised not to lie to her again, there was something changed between us, and I carried the weight of knowing that I had hurt her. It was impossible for her to hide her fear about my trip, but she knew my mind was made up and didn’t fight me anymore, not even when she found out about the age limit.

  “I’ll manage it,” I told her, even though I wasn’t sure how I would.

  Bernie even helped me pack. Sometimes it almost felt as though we were on the same side, but then she’d say so
mething that made it clear again how totally against the whole thing she was.

  “This is all Thurman Hill’s fault,” she said bitterly right before I left Reno. “If he had just been willing to talk to us on the phone, you wouldn’t be leaving now to go chase down that good-for-nothing four-letter word.”

  Her face went sad and she looked like she was about to cry.

  “This is for you, Bernie,” I said quickly, pulling a small cardboard tube out of my backpack and handing it to her.

  “What’s this?” she asked, wiping her eyes with the back of her hand. She opened one end of the tube and slid out the shiny rolled-up paper inside.

  It was a map I had bought for her. I’d used a highlighter to mark the bus route from Reno to Liberty. There was another part to the gift, a plastic box of colored pushpins.

  “The map is to put on the wall by the phone, Bernie. I’ll call you at each stop, and you can use the pushpins to mark how far I’ve gone. You’ll know exactly where I am that way, just like you always have.”

  Bernie hugged me.

  “I have something for you, too,” she said.

  She handed me a small box tied around with red yarn.

  “Open this when you get on the bus,” she said.

  We hugged again. Mama came out of her room still in her nightgown, her hair tangled and matted with sweat. I could tell from the way she was squinting that her head was still hurting.

  “Kiss,” Mama said, coming over and putting her arms around both of us, pressing her way into Bernie’s and my embrace. I turned and pressed my cheek against her soft, smooth face. Mama felt my tears.